The Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion

Lewis R. Rambo is Research Professor of Psychology and Religion at San Francisco Theological Seminary, San Anselmo, California, and the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, California. He has also been a Visiting Professor at Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea, and at Fudan University, Shanghai, China.

Charles E. Farhadian is Professor of World Religions and Christian Mission at Westmont College, Santa Barbara, California.

Cite

Rambo, Lewis R., and Charles E. Farhadian (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion , Oxford Handbooks ( 2014; online edn, Oxford Academic , 1 May 2014 ), https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195338522.001.0001, accessed 5 Sept. 2024.

Abstract

Religious conversion has long played a major role in the transformation of people, societies, and cultures worldwide. However, in recent decades, academic and personal interest in religious conversion has burgeoned, along with increasing controversy about its ethics, direction, and social, cultural, political consequences. The Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion draws on the expertise of an international team of scholars who provide original essays that illuminate the multifaceted nature of the phenomena of conversion in a global context. Moving past earlier, narrow definitions, this book provides the first major survey of both religions and theoretical perspectives on religious change. These innovative essays underscore the complex nature of religious change. An overview of current scholarship on religious change encourages new thinking and reflection on familiar and emergent themes to stimulate new scholarship and debate on conversion. The thirty-two original essays in this volume consist of two parts. Part I invites readers to consider global themes of religious change through disciplinary perspectives, including history, demography, geography, anthropology, sociology, psychology, gender studies, art, semiotics, politics, and autobiography. Part II explores the character of major religious traditions that advocate for change, conversion, and intensification. Individual essays offer unparalleled analysis of religious change within Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism, Daoism, Confucianism, Chinese indigenous religions, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Mormonism, and New Religious Movements, along with chapters on deconversion and the legal and political aspects of religious conversion. The Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion provides an invaluable resource for research and teaching in the immensely relevant theme of religious change.

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